Thursday, 28 March 2013

Last weekend I finished the Strv. 122 B released by Revell last month as kit No. 03199. The review of the kit itself can be seen in this linked post.

Revell provides 4 decal options and a 3 or 4 toned colorscheme. I chose a 3 colorscheme of light green, dark green and black.
For bright green I took 'globlin green' from Valejo game color range, the dark green is a mixture between Revell's bronze green with a bit of white. Revell recommends an other mixture but this color looks spot on compared with the real thing. The black is Revell's dustgrey toned down with a black wash. All rivets and panel lines are accentuated by a wash of darker variants of colors mentioned above.
The periscopes are painted by a mix of silver and red. I think the red looks good with the bright green so I also painted the snowclads on the turret in a red toned rust color.
I didn't use the decals to safe some time, they are not very promiment on the 122B version but decals are supplied.

On to the pictures! Click on them for a larger version:

The biggest differences between the 'regular' and Swedish Leopard II are located on the front of the hull and the rear half of the turret:

Thursday, 14 March 2013

After a few posts on Leopard II's it's time for something different, namely a review Emhar's model of the A7V. This time I also have a few photo's of an A7V made by a friend. Let's call him "Don Italeri" since revealing your real name on the web in any context is not smart when teaching on a high school.

The A7V was the first tank developed by the german army from 1916 to 1918. It was first used in 1918, the first tank vs. tank battle was fought on April 24 th 1918 at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. Although the A7V knocked out some enemy tanks it was not considered a succes because of engine problems and a poor performance on rough terrain. Improvements on the design were made but non of these were implemented because the war ended. The A7V was armed with a 57mm AT gun at the front and six 7,92 mm machine guns all around. 20 machines were build and the only original example is the 'Memphisto' currently displayed in the Queensland museum in Brisbane, Australia.

The Memphisto arriving in Australia

Both the tank museum in Bovinton (UK) and Munster (G) have a replica:
The replica from Bovington:

And the one from Munster:

The model of Emhar is pleasantly simple but well detailed, it is made out of 30 parts of which two (exhaust pipes) are optional. The entire track and suspension assembly is made out of two parts, one for each side of the tank. 12 parts make up the machine guns which can be fitted without glue, but I glued mine to make sure they wouldn't fall in the tank. The other parts make up the superstructure and main gun. Decals for 5 vehicles are provided including markings for the early and late version of the memphisto. The only problem I had when assembling the model was fitting the roof too the rest of the superstructure. At the front some plastic from the roofs bevel had to be cut away.

Don Italeri's reïncarnation of the A7V:

I painted my example as the late version of the Memphisto according to the picture on the back of the box. Unfortunately I found out to late that the exhaust pipes were placed too vertical (Note that Don Italeri didn't make this mistake). The instructions are not really clear on this, a less enthusiastic building pace from my side could be helpful also. As always click on the pictures for a larger version.